


BOV {Through the Shattered Looking Glass}

by MeinongsJungleBook



Series: Black Flame Rising [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers: Shattered Glass
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Character Development, Depression, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Exhibitionism, Explicit Language, Falling In Love, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jealousy, Loneliness, Love Triangles, Manipulation, Masturbation, Mental Health Issues, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Non-Explicit Sex, Other, Relationship Development, Robot Sex, Self-Esteem Issues, Slavery, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Toxic Relationships, Violent Thoughts, Voyeurism, Worldbuilding, suicidal behaviour, this is my own take on Shattered Glass based more heavily on the IDW continuity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-04-23 08:04:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19146904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeinongsJungleBook/pseuds/MeinongsJungleBook
Summary: Bumblebee watches Starscream fall apart, and develops some strange feelings.





	BOV {Through the Shattered Looking Glass}

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Starbee Week prompt "Shattered Glass".
> 
> This is set in my own SG continuity which is based on IDW(1). It takes elements from the official SG canon but it's its own thing.

The boredom was the hardest part. 

Everything about being dead sucked, even watching bots suck each other off up close without them knowing sucked in more ways than one. Sure, at first Bumblebee had decided to make the best of his newly-deceased status, but being able to spy on anyone he liked whenever he liked became stale much quicker than he had expected. What was the fun in learning everyone’s filthiest and most shameful secrets if he couldn’t use them to mock, manipulate, blackmail or humiliate anyone? And watching other bots frag quickly started to get frustrating when it just reminded him that he could no longer join in, no matter how hard he tried. The edge had even been taken off touching himself now that he was trapped in this fragging useless incorporeal shade of a frame. Plus he was now completely denied the pleasures of refuelling, or engex, or circuit boosters, or even recharging. His entire existence was beyond pathetic. 

He’d tried to figure out a way to return to life but where the frag was he supposed to start exactly? He wasn’t a scientist, or a...a fragging theologian or whatever the Primus-loving-slag would know what in The Pit had happened to him after that demented grease stain Shockwave had shot him in the back. He’d tried to hang around scientists in the hope they’d detect him or discuss something that would give him some clue as to whatever he was now, but they were all just fragging useless pieces of scrap who gave him absolutely nothing. Bee’s frustration with his situation had bubbled over into rage and he’d screamed unheard obscenities at them and tried to beat them with the cane he still had for some reason, but he was as impotent as they were. 

Eventually he decided to try hanging around Starscream; the former Decepticon SiC was stuck as a politician now, but he was still widely regarded as a scientific genius who was known to have an interest in the esoteric, so there was a chance that he may have decided to dabble in whatever weird thing was affecting Bee. Normally Bee would have said that there could nothing more brain-meltingly boring than watching the insufferable _pure_ Starscream go about his business, but Bumblebee was quite was curious to see how badly the pathologically loyal jet was handling the loss of his oh-so-precious Megatron. He was also eager to see Starscream ground down under the same pressures of leadership that had been crushing Bee in the lead up to his death. Plus there was always the chance that after getting close Bee would learn that the famously incorruptible Starscream was not as immaculate as he led everyone to believe, and such a revelation would almost make being stuck as a ghost worth it. 

Bumblebee tracked Starscream down at the memorial of that moron Metalhawk, where the jet hung his head with a solemn expression and quietly muttered his regrets, “I’m sorry. I wish I could have found a better way...I...I have to admit that I am angry with you for betraying me, but doesn’t justify the fact that I killed you. In the moment I didn’t know what else to do to stop you and I panicked, but that doesn’t make it right. Maybe it’s crazy, but I still think of you as a friend, and I wish you were here with me now. I’m sorry.”  

 _Well, well, well_ , thought Bumblebee as a dark smile spread over his faceplates at the delightful disclosure that Starscream had killed his good buddy Metalhawk and then hid it from the world. Not that Bee was at all surprised to learn that Metalhawk had betrayed Starscream – everyone besides Starscream himself had seen that coming from a megamile away.  

Metalhawk had ground Bumblebee’s gears and Bee had spent most of the time in his presence trying to figure out how to have him killed without causing a political incident, so if anything this revelation almost endeared Starscream to him. "Well turns out we agreed on something after all Starscream; that fragging idiot Metalhawk had to die,” Bumblebee said glibly. 

As soon as the words left Bee’s mouth Starscream’s head snapped up and a look of panic crossed his face, which became a look of much more confused panic when he somehow looked right at Bee, _“You’re alive?”_ he asked with alarmed incredulity as he started to back away with his arms held up defensively. 

 _“I’m alive?!”_ Bee parroted with the same incredulity. He looked down at himself as though he expected to see something other than the same frame that death had left him stuck with, and then looked back up to see Starscream unmistakably staring at him. A thrill of exhilaration shot through Bee at the realisation that whatever living death he’d been condemned to had finally ended, and he started charging towards Starscream with a manic expression on his face. He didn’t actually have any idea what exactly he intended to do to Starscream when he caught him, all he knew was that it had been far too long since he’d any type of physical contact with anyone – ally or enemy – and he was all too happy to blindly ride the wave of his instincts and desires.  

Starscream braced himself in defence as Bee pounced at him, but blinked in confusion when Bee passed right through him to collapse face-first on the ground behind him, spewing profanities. Bee scrambled to his feet and then launched himself at Starscream once more from behind, only to phase through him once more.  

 _“Frag you! Frag you! FRAG YOU!”_ Bumblebee screamed at the baffled Starscream while viciously but uselessly swinging his cane through him. After a minute or two of fruitless violence and increasingly filthy screeched obscenities, during which Starscream just stared at him dumbfounded, Bee calmed down enough to realise that this was still a win. Sure, he wasn’t completely returned to life yet, but he was at least visible and audible now, which meant that he could actually do something to try and bring about his total resurrection. He transformed and sped towards the haunts of some of his old Autobot associates; he knew enough about all of them to know exactly how he could bargain with/blackmail them into helping him. But when Bumblebee found his old “friends”, he also found that no measure of threats, cajoling, screamed profanities, phantom violence or loudly announcing their deepest and darkest secrets in front of both them and crowds of people could get them to take notice of him. 

Fuming, Bumblebee eventually returned to Starscream, who seemed to notice him out of the corner of his optic as he discussed some boring government matters with that little rat he’d adopted. 

“Hey you, yeah you, Megsy’s favourite ride, can you see me or what?” Bumblebee growled irritably, wanting to check if at least Starscream could still notice him, or if that other time had just been a fluke. Starscream’s optics flickered over to Bee – he had definitely noticed him – and then they returned to his rat again, before he glanced back at Bee, with an expression of increasing concern at the apparent fact that he could see and hear Bee while his little pet couldn’t. He quickly wrapped up the conversation and walked out the room with Bee following after him, slinging insults at him simply because he was in a foul mood and wanted to take it out on someone who could actually hear the unkind things he had to say. 

Starscream arrived at the medic and asked them to scan him for hidden bugs and insidious frequencies, and when their tests returned nada he gave a small, sad sigh and then asked them for antipsychotic medication, “– and can you please organise for me to see a thera-…" Starscream paused mid-word as his expression grew even more sad and uncomfortable, before he continued on a different track. “Can you please ensure that they’re **strong** antipsychotics?”

Having decided that Bee was some kind of stress and grief-induced hallucination, Starscream did his best not to acknowledge his presence, which infuriated Bee at first, and he said every insulting and provocative thing he could think of to try and get a reaction out of Starscream. But then he decided that he could bide his time a little; it was clear to him that Starscream was struggling in every sense, so breaking through his thin façade of control would have to happen eventually, but before that Bee could take the opportunity to get a raw sense of Starscream’s misery apart from his manipulations. If he got an idea of how bad Starscream already had it before he went about the business of making it worse, he’d get a better sense of how best to work with what he had. So Bee took a bit of time to stand back and observe. 

As Bumblebee had expected, Starscream was struggling in his role as Cybertron’s leader; unlike the members of the Autobot high command who had taken any perceived opportunity to try to rid themselves of their insane leader and then tear each other to scraps to take his place, Starscream had never made a move for Megatron’s position. He’d always seemed perfectly content in his positions as scientist, SiC, and bent over Megatron’s recharge slab babbling his ‘glorious’ leader’s name with the same brainless devotion and sickening adoration that he had when he carried on about him in every other situation. Now that he’d be thrust into a leadership role (as opposed to having his leader thrust into him) he was out of his element and miserable, stuck in charge of a population of Autobots who hated him, Neutrals who demanded everything of him, and Decepticons who seemed to be doing little to help him, which surprised Bee. 

The Cons were such a mushy lot, and Starscream in particular had been extremely well-liked among them, so it was strange to find that they seemed to be doing little to support him. Bee figured that part of the reason Starscream wasn’t surrounding himself with Decepticons was because he didn’t want to make it appear to the populous as though he was creating a Decepticon ruling elite, but as he continued to observe Starscream’s behaviour he realised that there was another reason. The Cons were all lost and confused about Megatron’s seeming betrayal before his death, and were looking to Starscream for answers, answers that Starscream didn’t have, and Starscream was doing everything he could to avoid that conversation, even if it meant distancing himself from everyone who could help him. 

Leading Cybertron was a fragging thankless job – in that respect Bee could relate to Starscream’s misery, and unlike Starscream he had actually _wanted_ the job, or at least, he thought he had at first. But that definitely wasn’t the main source of what was clearly Starscream’s crushing depression; killing Metalhawk had also been a factor in Starscream’s overwhelming misery, but it was a factor that still paled in magnitude next to the primary cause, which was of course Megatron. Starscream didn’t actually ever mention his name if he could help it (which made for a revolutionary change), but it was obvious what the true font of his misery was; whenever anything even tangentially related to Megatron was brought up, Starscream looked like he was trying suppress a panic attack. Bumblebee repeatedly watched him have nightmares in which he’d wail and whimper and desperately mumble Megatron’s name before startling awake with a look of utter distress on his faceplates, after which he would walk out onto his balcony and stare vacantly out over Iacon. 

One day a Decepticon who had completely blown his processor went on a rampage through Iacon, screaming about how Megatron was a liar who had betrayed and abandoned them while firing lasers left and right at anybody who was stupid enough not to get out his way, before he finished up by feeding himself a grenade. Starscream never appeared to refuel particularly well these days, and he’d already gone longer than was advisable without fuel when that hilarious meltdown went down, then in the aftermath he took no fuel for days as he dealt with the clean-up. When he finally found time to refuel, he had tried to pour some energon into a cube with severely shaking hands, only to take two sips and then rush to his washracks to purge his tanks. After he was done retching he had switched on the shower and stood under the cascade of scalding solvent, simply trembling until he’d braced himself against the wall and finally started to sob. He’d slid down the wall and collapsed onto his knees as his sobbing turned to open weeping, and he curled up on the floor of the shower and just cried as the solvent continued to rain down on his shaking form. It was a disgustingly and delightfully pathetic display to watch.  

Eventually Bee got sick of just watching, however. One day he decided to ask the question that had been pressing on his processor more and more, “You do know you’re bringing all this misery on yourself, right?” he asked Starscream. “You’re not doing anything to cope; you’re the leader of Cybertron, you could be blacking out on the best engex on the planet after popping a dozen circuit boosters while a bot with a vibrating tongue eats you out. But instead you just choose to be depressed. What’s your malfunction exactly?”  

Following his initial barrage of insults and provocations at the start of their new dynamic, Bumblebee had mostly been lurking around Starscream, making the occasional jab but otherwise just watching. While Starscream had clearly been disturbed by his presence, he’d been doing his best to ignore him, but this comment finally earned Bee a look of disgusted incredulity. 

“What?” Bee responded, genuinely confused as to what was so outrageous about his suggestion. If anything, Bee felt like he was being helpful.  

“I didn’t realise drug-fuelled orgies of hedonistic self-destruction were part of my subconscious desires,” Starscream muttered as he returned his gaze to the data pad he was trying to read.  

“I didn’t say anything about an orgy, but that’s an even better idea,” Bumblebee responded earnestly. As fun as it was to watch Starscream suffer, it was also weirdly frustrating seeing him be so miserable and then do absolutely nothing about it.  

Starscream just continued to gaze at his data pad, having apparently returned to his policy of ignoring Bee, but Bee was bored of that.  

“It’s a totally normal way for leaders to unwind from all that stress. You’re not trying to say that Megatron never huffed crysmag out a jet’s cockpit while a bunch of modded-out pleasure drones with giant, prehensile tentacle-spikes took turns fragging him from behind, are you?” Bee probed.

That got a little twitch out of Starscream’s face and wings, but otherwise the jet continued to ignore Bee.  

Bee couldn’t be having that, “Of course, some leaders prefer to get off in other ways. For our dear ol’ Optimus it was always more about the violence than the sex. We were always sure to have some prisoners on hand in case he needed to let off tension, otherwise we knew that we’d be the ones helping him destress. Sure, if the brain and ember survive the initial brutal beating followed by the more leisurely and creative dismemberment, a bot can be rebuilt should dear OP deem them worth the effort, but the mind takes longer to recover from that experience like that, if it recovers at all. Still, each to their own right? Leaders get put under a lot of pressure and who are we to judge what they do to cope with it? So, what was Megatron’s poison? Did he and OP have even more in common than I thought? There are some Autobot POWs still unaccounted for after all, maybe Megatron made use of them? I know you Decepticons like to turn your noses up at such _uncivilised_ practices, but Megsy did change his tune right before the end. Maybe he’d been dabbling in Autobot pastimes for a while before he finally decided to commit to the other team. What do you think Starscream? Do you know what happened to all those missing Autobots?”

The data pad Starscream was holding in his hand cracked. He threw it down on his desk and buried his face in his hands, “Shut up,” he sobbed quietly.  

“Wow,” said Bumblebee, a smirk spreading across his faceplates. “Rude.”  

“You’re just the worst parts of myself,” Starscream muttered into his hands. “You’re my guilt over killing Metalhawk, over failing to save so many others, and letting things get this bad. You’re my fear that things will get even worse, and that I’ll let Cybertron fall again. And you’re my doubt about...everything I’ve ever known. About myself, about Megatron, about everything I’ve fought and killed for four million years.”  

“So basically you’re a fragged-up mess,” Bee summarised as he continued to smirk.  

“But I don’t have to listen to you. The better parts of my nature are still with me, and I need to use them to help Cybertron and its people. You’re nothing but noise,” Starscream asserted as his hands fell away from his face and he picked the cracked data pad up from his desk.  

“You so sure about that?” Bee asked as he sidled up closer to Starscream’s desk. “You and I have both seen a lot of weird scrap in our millions of years of existence. Is insanity the only explanation an inventive bot like you can come up with for me?”  

“It’s the most straightforward explanation,” Starscream muttered, “after all I certainly feel like I’m going mad.”  

“Not a bot of faith are you Screamer?” Bee queried.  

“I’m agnostic,” Starscream snapped at him as he tried to focus on his broken data pad.

“So you’re open to considering the possibility that there are supernatural beings?” Bee asked as he leaned on Starscream’s desk. 

Starscream stared pointedly as his data pad.  

“You ever consider that you might be being punished Starscream?” Bee said with a smile.  

Bee noticed Starscream’s face twitch almost imperceptibly.  

Bee continued on, “After all, you did spend four million years hopelessly devoted to a mech who in the end didn’t even believe in the values he had you killing in the name of. You ever think of exactly how many people you killed during the war? How many deaths your inventions caused? All those lives snuffed out for the sake of the amateurish attempts at philosophy made by a guy who specialised in math.”  

Starscream’s grip on the data pad tightened and the crack in it widened, along with Bee’s smirk. He still didn’t know how he was going to manipulate Starscream into bringing him back to life, but he was starting to figure out what buttons to press in order to manipulate him at all. Until he figured out how exactly he needed to maneuverer Starscream, he could make good use of him for the sake of entertainment. 

“But punishment can go hand-in-hand with correction and redemption, and benevolent overseers understand that sometimes wrongdoers just need proper guidance,” Bumblebee reached out and traced an incorporeal finger over the seams in the hand that grasped Starscream’s data pad. “Don’t worry Starscream, I’m here to watch over you.”  

A few months into Bumblebee and Starscream’s special new relationship the alien showed up. Well, alien in the sense that she wasn’t Cybertronian, but she was still more or less one of their kind. According to her, she and the quiet bot that attended her were the last surviving refugees from a long lost and now annihilated Cybertronian colony, and she promised Starscream their servitude in exchange for sanctuary. The ever-charitable Starscream was quick to take her up on her offer, but instead of asking exactly what they could do for him, he just showered them with everything a couple of tramps could possibly need and then some. 

Bumblebee was immediately suspicious of these newcomers, especially the dominant of the two who had made the offer, Windblade. Manipulation was Bee’s wheelhouse, which gave him a knack for picking out fellow manipulators, and she gave him a vibe. He strayed from Starscream’s side to tail her, and watched her wander Iacon, gathering intelligence on Starscream and Cybertron. Oh yes, she was clearly up to something, something that could either be highly problematic for Bee, or highly entertaining. He would have to watch and wait a little longer to figure out what it was and act accordingly. 

Windblade claimed that she was an expert on Titans, and offered to use her alleged expertise to lobotomise Metroplex into total subservience, which was a great offer in theory if that’s what she actually intended to do, instead of sabotaging him or making him subservient to _her_. The tender-embered Starscream however wasn’t having it – the idea that she might tinker with Metroplex in such a way that would undermine him didn’t even seem to cross Starscream’s processer, he was just opposed to the idea of messing with the mind of one of his most powerful long-time enemies to ensure his loyalty. Bumblebee would never understand Decepticons. 

If access to Metroplex was what Windblade ultimately wanted, it was _awfully_ convenient for her that a mysterious explosion (which was difficult to determine cause of) damaged Metroplex enough that Starscream called upon her to ask her to lend a hand in fixing the Titan. Sure, half of Iacon was in such a slagged-up state of disrepair that it was probably just a matter of time before something just exploded, and if it was a bombing there were more than enough discontents that could have been behind it, but Bumblebee thought it was ridiculous that Starscream didn’t seem to suspect Windblade at all.    

When Starscream gave her access to Metroplex’s brain chamber, her optics sparkled with such avarice that Bumblebee lost any doubt that she was the one behind the explosion. As she stared at the massive brain module, lit up with glowing glyphs, she started rambling on about the functioning of Titans with an almost religious reverence and impassioned enthusiasm, like a hobbyist who had tricked someone into discussing their special interest during a long ride in a small shuttle. While Starscream showed polite, attentive interest, Bumblebee tuned out her rambling until he picked up on some key words about “death” and “other dimensions”, and quickly tuned back in. According to Windblade, the Titan mind and ember could transcend the barriers between realities, and sometimes even those barriers that separated the living from the dead. Maybe that was just her culture’s superstitious scrap, but since finding himself a ghost Bumblebee was much more open to superstitious scrap. If Titans really could connect the realms of the living and the dead, then maybe this Cityspeaker Windblade was his ticket out of here.

Windblade took advantage of Starscream’s social isolation to manoeuvre herself into a position of comradery with him. Their professional exchanges became increasingly peppered with little anecdotes and asides as they shared more and more details about their lives and interests. Starscream seemed delighted to have someone with whom he could causally discuss all the fragging weird and obscure science scrap and trivia he loved so much – _the_ e _normous nerd_ – and Bumblebee had to wonder if Starscream had a streak of sadism after all as he subjected Windblade to his incredibly dumb jokes. If Windblade was planning on betraying Starscream Bumblebee hoped she intended to do so soon so that he wouldn’t have to listen to anymore of her and Starscream’s banal, geeky chitchat. 

“Ugh, can you just frag her already?” Bumblebee complained.  

Starscream shot him a dirty look, but unfortunately it wasn’t dirty in the way Bumblebee would have liked, “I honestly don’t know what exceedingly unprofessional part of my psyche you represent,” he said in that prissy way of his.  

“The same part that thought getting railed by your boss for the last four million years was a good idea?” Bumblebee suggested.  

Starscream then started to make a show of quite pointedly ignoring Bumblebee, who gave a huff of annoyance.  

“ _Oh come on._ I’m bored as the fragging Pit here, and if you just plug up that painted alien it’ll be a relief for both of us. Hey, we know their energon is a different colour, aren’t you curious to find out if they differ in any other ways? Who knows what she’s got hiding under her panels? You’re a scientist, right? Isn’t your duty to explore unknowns? You’re neglecting your scientific duty by not fragging her Starscream!” Bumblebee implored.  

Starscream’s lips twitched almost imperceptibly, and Bumblebee could have sworn that they were trying to curl upwards into an amused smile, but then Starscream’s expression formed a frown, like he was angry that he had felt the slightest bit of mirth.  

Bumblebee felt an odd sense of triumph at this, but an even stranger sense of frustration that Starscream persisted in denying himself even the tiniest bit of pleasure, “You could probably get that dead-opticed slave of hers involved as well – bet she would do whatever you ordered her to. You could have one of them on each end, just think about it: all your wires in a tangle, filling up all of each other’s holes, covering one another in cultural exchange of frag fluids as you mark each of those alien glitches as your one-of-a-kind personal ‘face toys in fragfest of Cybertronian conquest. ”  

“ _Language!”_ Starscream hissed, looking mildly affronted.  

Bumblebee stared at him blankly for a moment before he said, “Are you actually fragging serious?”  

“Look,” Starscream said, sounding irritable, “I respect Windblade as a professional and as a person; I admire her intellect and value her unique outlook and experience. Aside from whatever part of me _you_ are, my feelings for her are purely professional and platonic, and even if they weren’t it would be inappropriate of me to pursue her romantically given that I’m in a position of power over her. Besides, I highly value her friendship and I wouldn’t want to do anything that might jeopardise it.”

Bumblebee didn’t get it, what was the point of having friends in the first place if not to use them for stuff like fragging? He then realised that Starscream was accustomed to different kinds of relationships; while the Autobots believed in the primal, selfish hostility that lay in the ember of every bot that could only be overruled by fear and alliances of convenience, the Decepticons had all those hoity-toity ideals about trust, compassion and peaceful civilisation. Now that Megatron was gone and he was isolated from the other Decepticons, Starscream was caught in a type of loneliness that a good fragging wasn’t going to alleviate. It wasn’t enough for Decepticons to just have attention, subservience and physical pleasure; they thought that valuable relationships involved trust, empathy, and intimate knowledge of one another’s minds and embers. As absurd as it was, from a Decepticon perspective you could be surrounded by fawning bots hand-feeding you nucleon-spiked engex candies while their free hands and mouths were all over your interfacing equipment and still feel lonely. 

Bumblebee realised that, from a Decepticon perspective, he’d been lonely his entire life.  

Things started to get more interesting when those clowns from Velocitron showed up and convinced Starscream that he should form an alliance with the other Cybertronian colonies that were apparently out there. Given that each of those colonies was purportedly settled by a Titan, this gave Starscream all the more reason to work closely with Windblade as he took her along on his expeditions to handle any Titan-related business they might find themselves dealing with. This pleased Bumblebee, because he wanted Windblade tinkering with Titans as much as possible in case it somehow led to Bee’s freedom, and he wanted her talking with Starscream more in case he could use Starscream as a conduit to nudge her in that direction. Plus being around Windblade made Starscream less lonely, which made him less mopey all the time, which was a plus.  

Windblade alleviated some measure of that intense loneliness Starscream was suffering, but once he got a taste of the social interaction he’d been deprived of he seemed to just crave more, or at least that’s what Bee figured as Starscream started speaking to him of his own volition. After meeting with the Devisens, Starscream got particularly agitated, and he ranted to Windblade about them in private. She managed to say something that seemed to soothe him for a time, but after they’d gone their separate ways and Starscream had returned to his apartment, he’d grown agitated again, and chose to rant to Bee this time, “I understand that forming alliances with other cultures involves a certain measure of open-mindedness and tolerance, but there has to be a limit! A line has to be drawn somewhere! I can’t just turn a blind optic and pretend that I can tolerate a society that’s so deeply and fundamentally-”

“-fragged?” Bumblebee offered.  

“Yes!” Starscream agreed. That was a novelty. “I just don’t understand – I've never been a part of a combiner myself but I’ve been close friends with those who have, and what’s more I’ve studied the process, so I know that it can be an incredible experience, the ultimate expression of intimacy and cooperation! Mixmaster once described it like it was a transcendent, religious experience, and Hook once admitted to me that he hadn’t fully believed in the Decepticon vision of an equal society until he’d found how harmoniously he and the other Constructicons worked together as Devastator! The Devisens have taken something... _beautiful_ and perverted it into a systematic means of totally oppressing half of their race. It’s completely sick.”

Honestly the system of dominance and submission that the Devisens had going on made sense to Bumblebee’s Autobot sensibilities – well, it made sense so long as you ensured that you ended up in the dominant position – but he decided not to bring that up. He was more interested in Starscream’s reaction to it than he was in getting into a fight with him about it; obviously a Decepticon was going to be upset by something like this, but Starscream seemed _especially_ affronted. Maybe it was because combiners were one of his nerdy interests, so he took special offense to seeing them “perverted” in his optics. Then again, maybe this again came down to Starscream’s loneliness; Starscream had lost the person he’d shared his deepest thoughts and feelings with, and now he’d met a race of people who all had such a person automatically, and instead of treating it in the mushy way Decepticons did, they’d decided to create a system of slavery. Starscream was angry that they were “wasting” something that he desperately wanted and was being denied.

It was funny, Bee thought, that in a way the connection between him and Starscream was kinda like what was going on with the Devisens; they were two bots stuck together by fate who shared their most intimate selves. Well, Starscream’s intimate self was on display to Bumblebee anyway, but in that respect it was pretty one-sided. On second thought he considered that what they had wasn’t really that different from a lot of the relationships Bee had back when he was alive; he was a known manipulator and blackmailer, and yet he still managed to get bots to spill their secrets to him, whether it was with drugs, engex, or just some carefully crafted words. It was his special knack. While he collected everyone else’s secrets, he took special care to keep his own private thoughts and feelings deeply under wraps. He’d learnt from a very young age that surviving meant keeping one’s vulnerabilities locked down as tight as possible, and this included any thoughts that might make one a target, or any emotions that could be exploited. It occurred to Bee that with Starscream, he was no longer in that sort of danger; Starscream couldn’t attack him or rat him out to anyone – honestly Bumblebee doubted that Starscream even had it in him to mock him. Theoretically, Bumblebee could be as honest and open with Starscream as he liked and not face consequences. Well, at least until he came back to life anyway.  

“Well if even six bot combiners can work well together without having to make any one part the dominant one, then I guess the whole ritual fight for dominance and empurata the Devisens do is just a waste of time,” Bumblebee agreed. He didn’t _really_ totally agree; he imagined that the only reason the Constructicons were able to work together like that was because they bought into happy-shiny Decepticon ideology, which would never really work in the long-term when applied to a society as a whole. But at the end of the day he didn’t actually care, so he was happy to say the sort of thing Starscream wanted to hear; now that Windblade was around the opportunity to bring Bee back might actually come up, and if it did he wanted Starscream inclined to use it to rescue him.

“A sadistic, unconscionable waste of time!” Starscream carried on.  

“And a waste of a relationship too I suppose,” Bumblebee added, studying Starscream’s reaction as he spoke, “the Devisens each have unique access to a special type of intimacy that they squandered for the sake of complete control over another bot.”

Starscream’s optics widened in surprise, “...yes,” he agreed, sounding confused by the fact that he and Bee were agreeing, “yes exactly that.”  

“If you find yourself in a position where you can make a special connection with someone, it just makes sense to try and make it the best kind of connection it can be. That’s why I try and make what we have work Starscream,” he said, reaching out an intangible hand to hold against Starscream’s arm as though he was providing a friendly touch to accessorise the smile he offered.  

Starscream flinched away from him, “I don’t see how constantly insulting me, bringing up painful memories and topics, and making endless crude remarks and suggestions equates to ‘trying to make it work.’” Starscream said with the closest thing he could manage to a sneer.  

Bumblebee gave a sad sigh, “I’ll be the first to admit I’m not perfect, and I have said things to you that are unnecessarily cruel yes, but I _am_ trying to look out for you Starscream. I’m trying to help you confront the faults you have that got us all into this mess, and I’m trying to help you accept the reality of what has happened, and is happening. It’s painful I know, but it’s for your own good.”  

An upset and conflicted expression crossed Starscream’s face for a moment before he simply turned and walked away. Bee waited until Starscream’s back was to him before he let a smug smile creep across his face.  

After securing alliances with the Velocitronians and Devisens, Starscream took Windblade to meet with the Eukarians. That whole expedition was an enormous frag up where they both almost died – Windblade because she was doing something stupid and Starscream because he stupidly tried to rescue her. Ultimately they both survived and managed to secure another alliance, but only barely. Bumblebee was pretty pissed that Starscream had almost thrown his life away like that; he needed Starscream around at least until he came back to life. In fact, Starscream was often throwing himself headlong into danger; part of it was undoubtedly his ridiculous Decepticon heroism at play, but there was probably an element of suicidality to it all. It was very annoying. 

Bumblebee continued to try and wheedle his way onto Starscream’s good side – their history and profoundly different personalities and worldviews made it hard, but the fact that Starscream had no one else to turn to made it easier. The only person Starscream could really call a friend at this point was Windblade, and there were still a lot of things he couldn’t tell her, or that she wouldn’t understand as an outsider, so he had to disclose and vent about most things to Bee instead. Bumblebee did his best to respond to these things in a way he thought would make Starscream more positively inclined towards him, although he couldn’t resist still messing with him from time to time, and Starscream often found Bee’s charms a bit crude. Bee knew how to schmooze with the sophisticates, but that wasn’t a persona he was willing to put on for the entire time he was stuck with Starscream.  

After establishing the Convocation of Worlds, Starscream spent a lot of his time trying to manage the chaotic culture clash that resulted from letting a bunch of aliens onto the planet, while becoming increasingly overworked and stressed in the process. At one point that exhaust pipe Ironhide was having a go at him about how the foreigners were interfering with him and the operation of his gang of thugs, and as usual Bee was saying how he thought Starscream should deal with the situation, “Pfft, Ironhide’s a brain module short of Rossum’s Trinity; he understands that you’re not Optimus to enough of an extent that he’ll speak to you in a way he’d never dare speak to Optimus, but he still can’t comprehend that you don’t do things the Autobot way. I don’t know how in The Pit Blast Off has been managing to keep him from mindlessly slaughtering and torturing the people into submission like we used to back in the day. Ironhide runs on autopilot; the reason he was one of OP’s biggest loyalists is because he’s terrified of independent thought, it sends him into an existential panic or something. You can put him in his place pretty easily by either reminding him there is an order and you’re above him in it, or by scaring him with the idea there’s no order at all.”

Typically Starscream completely ignored Bee and his advice, but this time, much to Bee’s surprise, Starscream seemed to take some of what he said on board, “Ironhide, I gave you your current position because I wanted Autobots around who were willing to work with me in building a new world with a new order, but the more you say the more it becomes clear to me now that the concept of ‘new’ is outside your realm of understanding. So let me explain: this is not the Autobots, the Autobot way of doing things is not universal law, I am not Optimus Prime, but I **am** your superior, and you **will** listen to me when I tell you that things are changing and we have to change with them. The colonists are bringing new ways of doing things with them, and we need to learn how integrate their ways with our own. Now if that’s too hard for you, you can leave the position I’ve given you and figure out your own way in this new world. I’m sure you’ll simply _excel_ at working that out for yourself.”

A look of surprise and discomfort crossed Ironhide’s face, and he opened his mouth as though to say something, but then he shut it, gave a submissive little nod, and left. 

“Oh, classily done,” said Bumblebee, genuinely impressed. “Not exactly the way I would have done it sure, but we all have our own style. Now if that felt good, you should really try overseeing an interrogation sometime.”  

Starscream just sighed, then to Bumblebee’s surprise, he got up from his seat and went over to a cabinet Bee hadn’t seen him open before, and pulled out a large bottle of high grade. He took it back to his desk where he sat and poured himself a glass, before he slammed it back, swallowing the lot in one gulp.  

“Fragging _finally_ ,” Bee said approvingly, “now how about we get you some company? Company with circuit boosters.” 

Either Starscream was a total lightweight or the booze was especially potent, because after one glass he was already looking at Bee through a daze of drunkenness. Instead of responding he just turned back to the bottle, poured himself another glass, and then slammed that one down too.  

“Well this is a good start anyway,” Bee said.  

After his second glass Starscream just gazed into nothing for a moment with glazed over optics, before he turned to Bee and said, “What the frag am I doing? What’s the point? I try and I try and I try to make things better, but I barely have any control over what actually happens. If I could work on science again I would actually be useful, but I’m trapped as a slave to this world, forced to make all the hard choices and constantly getting judged for it. I hate it and I just want it to end.”  

“Yeah I know, it sucks,” Bumblebee agreed, having had a similar sort of experience with his own stint as leader.    

“I’m meant to be the leader of this world, but leaders are meant to have vision and conviction, and the will to follow through. I don’t have a vision – the way I always pictured the future after the war can never happen now, and I have nothing to replace it with. Conviction? Pfft, everything I believed is wrong apparently, and I barely have the will to keep living, and I don’t know how much longer that’s gonna last,” Starscream said hopelessly. 

Bumblebee obviously couldn’t be having Starscream offing himself, “Hey, I know everything seems awful now, but it’s not going to be like this forever. We spent the last four million years in the same status quo and now everything’s completely different, so of course we’re all going to feel confused and out of our depth. This is just a transitionary period where we all figure things out, and after that things will be better,” he said soothingly.  

“We kept telling ourselves during the war that things were going to be better. The war went on and on and on but we kept saying that things would be better when it was over to keep ourselves going, but they’re not are they? They’re worse. They’re worse because he’s gone,” Starscream sobbed. “During the war, throughout all the death and killing and atrocities I was still so happy to be alive because I was with him and I had a purpose, but now we have peace and I have nothing and I hate being alive.”  

“Well, being dead isn’t a drive in the park either, let me tell you that. Trust me, staying alive is the way to go,” Bee advised him. “Anyway, honestly I think you’re better off with Megatron dead, after all he betrayed you after you’d given him absolute loyalty for four million years. Frag that rusty waste pipe, I say.”  

And with that Starscream collapsed onto his desk in a fit on drunken wailing.  

Bumblebee supposed that he should have anticipated that reaction, even if he didn’t understand it. Well, if he ever wanted to understand, he supposed that this was his opportunity, “What was it about that buckethead that made you so obsessed with him anyway?” he asked. Bumblebee had known Starscream for millions of years, but given that they had been enemies on opposite sides of a planet-rending, genocidal, so-called war crime filled clash of ideologies for the vast majority of that time, they weren’t exactly close. Throughout the war Bumblebee had mainly thought of Starscream as Megatron’s slavishly devoted pretty frag toy that always managed to spew out some slaggingly infuriating invention to help turn the tide back towards Decepticon favour when Autobot victory was finally within their grasp. Aside from the inventions that had thwarted and almost killed Bumblebee on several occasions, the main thing Bee had associated with Starscream was his notorious loyalty to Megatron. It was the thing he knew him for, but he’d understood it about as well as he understood how Starscream’s inventions were put together. He just couldn’t comprehend what could possibly inspire such overblown devotion to a mech.  

Starscream peered up at him, the film of his blue optics flaring with grief, and said, “He was my everything. When I was first made, I was told that I had the privilege of being built for a purpose, that I had a special place in society. I did my best to live up to this purpose I had been lucky enough to be given, but I still didn’t feel fulfilled. I kept thinking there had to be something more to life, and I felt guilty for being so greedy, because so many bots weren’t created with the great fortune I had been given. But I still felt wrong, so I put my all into becoming a scientist, so that I could earn the even greater privilege of being made alt-mode exempt on the grounds of exceptional talent. Eventually I qualified! It was the happiest I’d ever been, and those few decades of being free to practice science were amazing, but eventually that feeling of not being fulfilled crept back. I was still much happier as a scientist than I was as a warrior, but I still had the feeling that something was missing. I invented things, and they were nice, but they didn’t truly feel... _meaningful_ , even when they helped people. Then I met M- _Megatron_ ,” Starscream let out a sob, “and that missing piece inside me fell into place. He was my muse, he inspired me to invent things that truly felt meaningful, and by his side I finally felt like I had a purpose that fulfilled me.” 

Usually when Bee heard someone drunkenly pour their ember out like this he would make mental notes and then sift through the information he had gathered to determine if any of it was useful for manipulation or blackmail. He never responded in kind, not with honest information anyway. But new circumstances called for new tactics – Starscream believed that relationships were forged by sharing intimate thoughts and feelings, so if he wanted Starscream to form an attachment to him, he would have to respond in kind, “I’ve never had a purpose. I was one of the last bots to be forged before The Well dried up, and by that point Cybertronian society didn’t have much time for random accidents that Vector Sigma had decided to spit out uncommissioned. It certainly didn’t have a place for anymore small cars when I was made anyway, so I was just dumped onto the streets of Polyhex to fend for myself. A lot of the other street urchins were a lot bigger and stronger, so I had to rely on my speed and my wits to not get eaten alive. I allied myself with the gangs, but I was never loyal to anyone. Loyalty was just another emotional weakness to exploit, and I couldn’t afford to have weaknesses.  

“When the Autobots came along, what they were saying made sense to me, but at the end of the day they were just the biggest gang on the block and it seemed like a smart move to join them. I managed to get ahead in their ranks, but I started to realise that...,” Bumblebee paused as he tried to figure out how to articulate his most private, unspoken thoughts. “...being an Autobot is all about domination and survival of the fittest and becoming the big boss – basically if you’re an Autobot and you’re anybody but Optimus you’re a failure. So everyone always tries to get his spot and prove themselves the strongest of all, but deep down...I’ve always known I’m not the strongest, so I could never really win. I’ve always needed other people, so I’ve had to manipulate them into helping me survive. When I actually became leader, it became obvious that I was right to doubt myself before. I just...couldn’t dominate as a leader is supposed to. The tactics I use to control people just don’t work as well from that position, because leaders need to wield a different sort of power. Because I can never be the apex Autobot predator, I will always be one of the prey.”  

Bumblebee had never admitted all that to anyone before, well, no one who wasn’t about to die. As shameful and depressing as it was to confess to, it was strangely cathartic to be able to say it out loud to someone who was actually listening.  

Starscream looked at him with an expression of sad pity, and Bee was surprised to find that getting pitied wasn’t as enraging as he’d been led to believe. Autobot culture looked at pity as a weakness on the part of the one experiencing it and a grave insult to the one receiving it, but Bee realised that he’d much rather be pitied for his weakness as opposed to attacked for or exploited with it. 

“Leaders need other people as much as anyone else, more so actually. Needing help doesn’t make you weak, because everyone needs help,” Starscream told him softly.  

“Sure, leaders need to use people,” Bee agreed, “but it’s not the same. I got my power through knowledge and manipulation, which gave me some control over others, but the kind of power Optimus has is...pure. It’s something only a true leader can ever have, and so long as I don’t have it and someone else does, I will always be on a lower rung of the pecking order, where I can be turned to scrap metal on the whim of the leader if they’re having a bad day.”  

“No one should ever be hurt on anyone’s whim. It doesn’t matter who’s getting hurt and who’s doing the hurting, it’s never ever, _ever_ acceptable,” Starscream declared, his optics burning with righteous fury.  

Bumblebee’s lips curled in amusement at the sight of the drunken Decepticon lying slumped over his desk, his body positioned in miserable defeat, yet his face lit up in passionate anger on behalf of the woes of an Autobot. 

“...what?” Starscream asked as Bumblebee just looked at him with that expression of amusement.  

“You were just saying a couple of minutes ago that you have no convictions anymore, but here you are declaring with absolute certainty what’s right and wrong,” Bumblebee pointed out.  

Starscream stared at him blankly for a moment, before a smile of his own started to spread across his faceplates. He lay across the desk for a few moments more, and then he clumsily got up and started staggering towards his chambers, taking the bottle of engex with him. Bumblebee followed him and watched him dump himself down onto his recharge slab, take another swig of engex, straight from the bottle this time, and then place it clumsily on his nightstand before staring at the ceiling.  

“I haven’t recharged properly since...since I got this job I think,” Starscream said wearily. “Maybe the engex will help...back when I used to have trouble recharging I used to...we used to...” Starscream trailed off as an embarrassed expression formed on his face.  

“...Megatron used to frag you until you passed out?” Bumblebee surmised. Starscream’s expression grew more embarrassed in confirmation. “Well you’ve got two hands right? And maybe some toys hidden around here somewhere? If that’s what you need to do to get some recharge and lead properly then I think you’d better do it.”  

“I...have trouble getting in the mood alone,” Starscream told him, not looking him in the optics.  

“Well you’re not alone are you?” Bumblebee replied with a smirk.  

“I’m...not sure you’re my type,” Starscream replied, looking increasingly bashful.  

“Then pretend I’m someone who is your type. I’m just going to say some stuff, and you can pretend whoever you want is saying it,” Bumblebee told him. 

Starscream continued to avoid his gaze, but he also didn’t say ‘no’.  

“Starscream,” Bumblebee said, “trace the seams around your cockpit.”  

After a moment’s pause, Starscream complied.  

Bumblebee had done just about every interfacing act conceivable at least a dozen times, so normally watching another bot self-service as he talked them through it would be a highly unremarkable experience for him, but the fact that this was the closest thing to a mutual sexual interaction he’d had in years, with _Starscream_ of all bots, gave it a special erotic thrill. As he watched slender fingers dance over a gorgeous interfacing array in accordance with his instructions, he touched himself as well, and it felt almost as good as when he was alive. When he overloaded it felt...different. There was that usual physical pleasure, though it was dulled a bit by his ghostly state, but there something else there too, something new, a feeling that seemed to persist as he watched Starscream peacefully recharge. 

A short time later Sentinel Prime of all bots resurfaced alive, and when Starscream and Windblade confronted him, Sentinel managed to very nearly destroy Starscream, only for Windblade to save him at the very last moment. When it had seemed as though Starscream was totally screwed, Bumblebee had felt himself gripped with a level of horror comparable only to some of the moments when his own demise had seemed certain. Naturally Bumblebee didn’t want Starscream dead at any point in the near future; Starscream was his best bet at getting resurrected, and the only bot Bee could talk to. But the horror Bee had felt in those seconds where it appeared Starscream was certain to die felt as though it transcended those practical concerns somehow. Bee had never felt such a strong emotion on behalf of another person before, but then he’d never had a relationship with another person like the relationship he had with Starscream. 

It had been so rare in the past for him to be so reliant on a single bot; typically he’d constructed a web of many bots who owed him or were controlled by him in one way or another in order to ensure his survival, secure comforts and get ahead. Now however, so much of what he wanted and needed all hinged on Starscream and Starscream alone. Also, in the past he’d wanted people around to entertain him, but he’d always cycled through companions quickly, using them to get whatever he wanted out of them and then dumping them to move onto to something fresh and new. He didn’t have that option now, instead Starscream had been his only source of social interaction and the entertainment that came with. He’d thought that being forced to stick with one bot would make their company grow stale and boring, but instead the more time he was forced to spend with Starscream, the more interesting Starscream became. 

He had known many other bots intimately before, because it was by learning their deepest desires and secrets that he came to control them. He cared about this intimate knowledge inasmuch as it could serve him, but beyond that it didn’t make a difference to how much he cared about a bot aside from how he could practically use him, which was not at all. But for some reason, knowing things about Starscream, things that were important to Starscream, made a difference to how Bee felt about him. And this time, someone knew intimate things about Bumblebee in return. He wasn’t familiar with the experience of having someone walk around with his secrets in their processor without the intention of using them to hurt him. He was even less familiar with having someone wander around with his secrets and letting them live. 

Not only did Bumblebee let Starscream live, he wanted him to live, and yet Starscream apparently didn’t. When Sentinel had almost killed him he had looked into the face of death with resignation and relief, and the thought of this made Bee furious. Not just because Starscream throwing himself into harm’s way had the potential to upset Bee’s plans, but because the fact that Starscream was still so miserable and suicidal after Bee had offered him his secrets spat on the…the _specialness_ of what they’d shared. Starscream wanted to die because he’d lost Megatron and the bond they’d had, but Bee had offered himself up in Megatron’s place, and that night they’d shared their deepest thoughts and feelings and forged a bond to replace what Megatron had squandered. Bumbleee should be enough for Starscream to live for now, just as Starscream made Bee’s living-death feel so much more alive.  

After almost dying Starscream did seem to have regained a zest for life however, but it wasn’t because of Bee, it was because of that lying, manipulative glitch Windblade who just wanted to use him for whatever the frag her game actually was. She didn’t actually care about Starscream, not like Bee did. And now Starscream was falling for her, just because she’d saved his life at no particular peril to herself. She hadn’t offered up her deepest secrets and shown him her vulnerability in exchange for his own; she had no right to his feelings. 

Yet Starscream clearly felt things for her now that he didn’t before; it was clear in the way his gaze would linger on her, and the way he would try and draw out their conversations for as long as he could, while finding even more opportunities to compliment her and offer her help. When she wasn’t around he would find excuses to talk about her, in a way that reminded Bee of the sickening way he used to go on about Megatron. Worst of all, he’d started inventing again; he had no more free time than before, but next to the reports he had to go through on daily basis he kept a set of blueprints that he would add to between each report, while saying he was feeling inspired again. When Bee had asked what he was inventing, Starscream had launched into a long and nerdy explanation that just made Bee want to smack him across the face, and then when pushed for a much shorter and simpler explanation, Starscream had just said it was related to Cityspeaking, which made Bee want to hit him all the more.

But Starscream’s feelings for Windblade weren’t real – she’d just tricked and manipulated him into thinking that he wanted her. What Bee and Starscream shared, now that was real. Bee had never cared about other bots as anything more than a means to an end – he’d never understood the point, why should anyone else matter to him? But Starscream wasn’t some other bot; Starscream was the only one who could see and hear him, and that couldn’t mean nothing. Starscream was a part of him, like the Devisens were each two halves of one bot; it was the only explanation for their connection, and how Bee felt about him. But Bumbleblee wouldn’t abuse and suppress his other half the way the Devisens did, Starscream was right that by doing so they ruined what they had. It was stupid to abuse and oppress and weaken a part of yourself when that part could be made strong to make you strong. Bee knew that he wasn’t strong enough, but now he knew why; he’d been missing his other half, but now that they were together they would finally be strong enough to dominate the universe as the apex predator that fed on everything beneath it, Optimus Prime included.

No, Bumblebee wouldn’t abuse his other half, but where necessary, he would hurt him. Starscream had to face the painful truth that the bot that had her claws wrapped around his ember had no interest in him beyond how she could use him, so that once he got rid of her he could embrace the much greater pleasure Bee had to give him.

“You’re never going to have what you had with him again, not with any of them, you know that right?” Bee said to him.  

Starscream looked up from his blueprints, which he had been gazing at intently with the infuriatingly adorable expression he had when concentrating on something nerdy, “What?” he asked in confusion.  

“These people you rule over, none of them will ever be able to really know you the way he did, so none of them will ever love you the way he did,” Bee told him plainly. “Sure, you might be able to make them ‘love’ you by ruling well and constructing a public image, but it won’t be you they love, it’ll be the idea of you that you create to pacify and please them. Leaders have to be something beyond a person to the people they rule over, so none of them can ever love you as a person. Yeah you and Megatron had something, but the war was a perfect storm of chaos, that allowed exceptional, freakish things to happen, like your relationship with Megatron. But you’re a peacetime leader, and peace means stability. More stability than the war anyway, so as long as you remain committed to that peace, you’ll never have what you used to have with any of these people you have power over. You’re alone Starscream.”  

“Why are you saying this to me?” Starscream asked him, his voice quavering slightly.  

“Because I care about you Starscream,” Bee said as earnestly as he could manage, “and I don’t want to watch you become emotionally invested in something only to be hurt when you realise it can never be what you really want it to be.”  

For the rest of the day Starscream was quiet and sombre, exactly the way Bumblebee wanted him. Soon he would realise that he had no true friends or lovers amongst any of those living people, and he would turn inwards to Bumblebee for all that he needed, and they would share their deepest and most intimate selves with each other exclusively, as it ought to be. But then, to Bumblebee’s outrage, Starscream called on Windblade, and in the privacy of his apartment he started venting to her, and offered up his innermost thoughts and feelings, even telling her about what Megatron meant to him and what losing him had done. Didn’t Starscream listen to what he had told him? Didn’t he understand that Windblade was amongst the people he ruled over who could never truly know him, not like Bumblebee did? Didn’t he understand that all the intimate thoughts and feelings he was sharing with that glitch belonged to Bumblebee and Bumblebee alone?

Starscream hadn’t been able to speak to anyone about Megatron, not even the Decepticons he’d been friends with for millions of years, until he spoke about him with Bee, because Bee was special, and what they had was special. But now he was giving everything to Windblade the way a cheap, desperate frag drone gives its interfacing array to the first random bot that passes it in the street. Then Starscream told her that he wanted something to believe in again, and that filthy alien slag started to kiss him, and Bumblebee’s precious idiot was insane enough to kiss her back!  

Bumblebee’s rage was beyond the harshest and filthiest of expletives. As soon as he could touch again he would tear Windblade’s cabling from her throat and stomp on her chest until it cracked open and then he would continue to crush and grind down on her as her shrieks were garbled by her vomit until he felt her ember go cold beneath his foot. He’d then bend Starscream over her leaking corpse and frag him deep and hard and fast into her foul alien energon as he squealed and whirred louder than he ever had while skewered on Megatron’s spike. He’d make Starscream forget all about Megatron and Windblade and anyone else besides Bumblebee. Starscream didn’t need anybody else but Bumblebee, and Bumblebee didn’t want anything more than he wanted Starscream.


End file.
